Costs from grocery suppliers to supermarkets increase 2.1%pa in June

The pace of supplier cost increases to Foodstuffs supermarkets in June was little changed from the prior month, with the Infometrics-Foodstuffs New Zealand Grocery Supplier Cost Index (GSCI) showing an average 2.1% increase in what suppliers charged in June 2026, compared with a year earlier.

“However, there was a more widespread range of higher costs being recorded in June,” said Infometrics Chief Executive and Principal Economist Brad Olsen.” “As had been expected, a large number of cost adjustments stemming from conflict in the Middle East have finally landed, with June 2026 seeing the fifth highest number of monthly cost changes since 2018, across a variety of products.”

“Only half of the increases recorded in June were directly attributed to fuel adjustments, meaning there is still some persistent underlying breadth to cost increases recently. Importantly, evidence to date suggests that the magnitude of these cost increases has been more limited than might have been first expected, which has limited the size of cost increases across various products. With fuel prices having fallen considerably in June and into July, some of these fuel-related cost increases will be reversed out in coming months.”

Month on month, over 6,900 products increased in cost from May to June, the fifth largest number of monthly increases recorded since 2018. “Around half of these increases were directly due to fuel adjustments stemming from earlier fuel price increases,” said Mr Olsen. “Many of the larger number of changes were for grocery department items. The majority of these cost increases in June were of a small-to medium magnitude, with around 6,500 being increases of 0-20%.”

The Infometrics-Foodstuffs New Zealand Grocery Supplier Cost Index (GSCI), commissioned by Foodstuffs New Zealand, measures the change in the list cost of grocery goods charged by suppliers to the Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island co-operatives. The Index utilises detailed Foodstuffs NZ data across over 60,000 products the Foodstuffs co-ops buy to stock in their 500+ stores, making it the largest dataset of its type in New Zealand, to give a real-time view on supplier cost changes.

Every month, the Index tracks what it costs supermarkets to buy the goods to put on the shelf. Previous analysis shows that supplier costs are the major component of supermarket prices, representing two-thirds of the on-shelf price.

Supplier costs rose across all departments in June compared with the previous year, although cost declines for beer saw liquor cost increases slow back. “Larger increases for a number of fruits, fish fillet and shellfish, and fries, hashbrowns, and berries saw larger average increases across produce, seafood, and frozen departments respectively,” said Mr Olsen. “Although bread costs dropped slightly, various canned and packaged grocery department goods saw cost increases, including canned tuna, packaged milks, noodles, and bottled sauces.”

ENDS

Note:

The Infometrics-Foodstuffs New Zealand Grocery Supplier Cost Index (GSCI), commissioned by Foodstuffs New Zealand, measures the change in the list cost of grocery goods charged by suppliers to the Foodstuffs North and South Island cooperatives.

List cost refers to the cost suppliers charge retailers before trade spend is applied; trade spend being any form of discount provided by a supplier to allow their goods to be discounted.

The Index utilises detailed Foodstuffs NZ data, across over 60,000 products, analysed by independent economics consultancy Infometrics to produce the GSCI and publish it on a monthly basis. For more details see economics.infometrics.co.nz/report/grocery-supplier-cost-index.